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A buddy of mine in my local gaming club has bought two of the new KX-139. Rules available from ForgeWorld here:
http://www.forgeworld.co.uk/resources/PDF/Datasheets/Tau-Kx139-Ta%E2%80%99unar.pdf

He now faces the issue that players are kinda reluctant to face his new toys.

Looking first at the models impressive defenses:
- a 2+ armor save, 4++ vs shooting, 5++ vs melee,
- T9, i.e. immune to attacks below strength 6,
- Semi-Immunity to Deathblow, taking only half damage from a deathblow (6) result on the destroyer weapon table, halving the D6+6 wounds, as well as
- FNP 5+, IWND and Semi-Immunity vs Instant death (D3 wounds), poison and sniper wounding on 6+ due to being a GMC.

I did some napkin math trying to figure out what it takes to kill this model with shooting attacks:
- assuming BF4, it takes 810 shots at S6/S7 with AP3 or worse to remove all 10 wounds, ignoring IWND.
- assuming BF4, S10AP2 means 67.5 shots, S9AP2 makes it 90 shots, S8AP1 comes to 135 shots.
- assuming BF4, D-Weapons need 15 shots to inflict 9.91 wounds, including one half-strength deathblow.

That tells me that shooting at this thing is a fools errant. Anything that could knock it out will require multiple times the 600 points the KX-139 costs.
Ignoring the model seems similarly unattractive due to its significant firepower, with 72" D AP2, Ordnance 1, Massive Blast (7") being just one of the firing modes and ignore cover easily provided via marker lights.
Two SMS and two burst cannons for overwatch, as well as special permission to fire overwatch - which GMC in general are not allowed to fire - and fire it at BF2, makes it less attractive to go for this thing in melee.
Granted, it will be hit on 3+ by most melee units and has only two attacks, but stomp can take out quite some models.

My best guesses are:
a) find something has a solid chance to arrive in and survive in melee to lock the model in combat, which may be made very difficult due to bubble-wrapping and riptides with interceptor
b) attack it with LD-based attacks, e.g. psychic shriek

What would you guys do to counter this thing?
Note: I'm ruling out a baseball bat! I wouldn't dream of harming toys, even if they turn out in actual play to be over the top. ;-]

You'll probably find the most cost efficient means of killing a Ta'unar is Graviton weaponry if you are interested in actually killing it, otherwise trying to tie it up in melee is the best bet with lots of rapid assault forces.

Its largely dependent on the army you are using. For tyranids, I'd throw a large Gargoyle brood at it to both tie it up and to get cheap poison wounds. Tarpitting it is a good method, beyond psychic shriek.

Actually a turbo-laser laden warhound will probably make fairly short work of it. 4 turbo-laser hits (it's unlikely to miss!) have about a 50/50 chance of landing a deathblow hit.

If it does, then resolving that first (as the firer you decide in what order the hits are resolved) will only do a few wounds but it'll knock out the shield for the rest of the turn - long enough for 2-3 more destroyer hits to ventilate the thing.

The Supremacy Armour can in theory one-shot a warhound titan, but it's unlikely to. The ion weapons will probably drop the shields, so the mass driver will put a single destroyer slug on target..... but that's only a 1/6 chance of a deathblow and even if you get one, with 9HP, that's still not an automatic kill. If the titan can place itself to get a cover save against the ion fire, it may even still have shields.

Caederes wrote:
You'll probably find the most cost efficient means of killing a Ta'unar is Graviton weaponry if you are interested in actually killing it, otherwise trying to tie it up in melee is the best bet with lots of rapid assault forces.

Well,it is going to cost about 38 Grav Cannon (with grav amps) shots on maths average (from Grav Centurion supported by Precisence) to finish off one. That model's 10 WOUNDS is the biggest pain along with the 4++ and fnp. Which means you need 8 Grav Cents and two Divination Libby to reliably do this job, generally speaking this is going to be more than 800pts to kill it in one go.

I think by its capability and cost, Tau'nar should be a Titan class units, way more powerful than Stormsurge, WK, IK etc. So maybe take a Warhound or Eldar Revenaut to counter it?

locarno24 wrote:
Actually a turbo-laser laden warhound will probably make fairly short work of it. 4 turbo-laser hits (it's unlikely to miss!) have about a 50/50 chance of landing a deathblow hit.

If it does, then resolving that first (as the firer you decide in what order the hits are resolved) will only do a few wounds but it'll knock out the shield for the rest of the turn - long enough for 2-3 more destroyer hits to ventilate the thing.

The Supremacy Armour can in theory one-shot a warhound titan, but it's unlikely to. The ion weapons will probably drop the shields, so the mass driver will put a single destroyer slug on target..... but that's only a 1/6 chance of a deathblow and even if you get one, with 9HP, that's still not an automatic kill. If the titan can place itself to get a cover save against the ion fire, it may even still have shields.

The execution order of hits is a good point. thank you! With a deathblow result rolled, the model is vulnerable for the rest of the shooting phase.

Going with the Warhound with two double Turbo-Laser Destructors, we end up with BF4 and 4 shots S-D AP2. That's 2.66 hits resulting in 0.44 no damage, 1.77 times d3 wounds and 0.44 deathblows. This would statistically deal 0.44*(D6+6)/2 + 1.77*1.5 = 4.66 wounds to the KX-139. Adding divination twinlinking, we'd go up to 3.55 hits, 0.59 times no damage, 2.37 times d3 wounds and 0.59 deathblows, dealing 0.59*(D6+6)/2 + 2.37*1.5 = 6.22 wounds to the KX-139. Mind you, the numbers look less attractive if no deathblow is rolled, e.g. 1.667 wounds w/o TL, 2.223 with TL. We really do need the deathblow to knock out the shield, doubling the damage we are able to do with shooting. The point cost for this warhound with psyker and the required warp charges is close to 1.5 times the point cost of the KX-139.

Neophyte2012 wrote:

Caederes wrote:
You'll probably find the most cost efficient means of killing a Ta'unar is Graviton weaponry if you are interested in actually killing it, otherwise trying to tie it up in melee is the best bet with lots of rapid assault forces.

Well,it is going to cost about 38 Grav Cannon (with grav amps) shots on maths average (from Grav Centurion supported by Precisence) to finish off one. That model's 10 WOUNDS is the biggest pain along with the 4++ and fnp. Which means you need 8 Grav Cents and two Divination Libby to reliably do this job, generally speaking this is going to be more than 800pts to kill it in one go.

I don't play any IOM armies, so I spaced on the Grav option. Good call. Still works out difficult with range though. Arriving via DS will most likely run into interceptor.

Neophyte2012 wrote:
I think by its capability and cost, Tau'nar should be a Titan class units, way more powerful than Stormsurge, WK, IK etc. So maybe take a Warhound or Eldar Revenaut to counter it?

A warhound cannot effectively counter the KX-139 (see above). An Eldar Revenant is pretty much the same, at 4 shots D, with or with TL provided via psychic powers.



Due to mandatory pile-in moves at initiative and for the end of the assault phase, stomp should be able to take out 5-7 1" bases 5/6 of the time if you use small fry. That makes me consider fearless mandatory here. Even a bunch of necron wraith, who'd make the tau miss most attacks, hit it on 3+, wound it on 6+ and most likely shrug off non-6 results on the stomp table, would need to bring at least six models to be on the safe side for 2-3 turns. Clocking in at 240 points and of course vulnerable to counterattack while munching away at the KX-139. Still, an isolated death-match aside, the KX-139 should have a screen of other units making it impossible to assault it easily.

LD-Based attacks are limited in what they might do, since all GMCs are fearless, but psychic shriek - possibly in combination with LD debuffs - seems the best way to circumvent the massive defenses of the KX-139 and plan on a bubble wrap preventing assault.
So I'm thinking a DE transport, HQ+WWP with LD reducing DE goodies and one or two psykers shrieking, making sure to pop guide first, to avoid a miss on the shriek's to-hit roll. Looking into that now.

Perhaps listing the armies you have available would help?

Normally I would suggest tying it up in melee with meqs, so skyhammer with combat squadded ASM should provide enough bodies to survive interceptor and leave enough to survive the 1-2 casualties that a 2-5 stomp inflicts. Yeah, they're dead on a 6, but so is everything else, and that's the risk you take, but 380 points for 4 units of ASM who can charge out of DS turn 1 isn't terrible, and if they're intercepting the ASM, then they're not intercepting the Grav devs that are coming down as well.

But if you don't play imperial armies, well, that limits things.

 Drasius wrote:
Perhaps listing the armies you have available would help?

Yes, that'd help if I was looking specifically for my own options, but I'm looking at this with a bunch of players from my local gaming club who each have several different factions available.
Off the top of my head that'd be IK, SM, GK, Eldar, Necron, Daemons, KDK, AM, SW and I most likely forgot a bunch of forces. ;-]

 Drasius wrote:
Normally I would suggest tying it up in melee with meqs, so skyhammer with combat squadded ASM should provide enough bodies to survive interceptor and leave enough to survive the 1-2 casualties that a 2-5 stomp inflicts. Yeah, they're dead on a 6, but so is everything else, and that's the risk you take, but 380 points for 4 units of ASM who can charge out of DS turn 1 isn't terrible, and if they're intercepting the ASM, then they're not intercepting the Grav devs that are coming down as well.

But if you don't play imperial armies, well, that limits things.

Skyhammer is a good idea, assuming there is space to land and an line open to charges. This thing is likely going to be stuck on the table edge or in the corner.

I think he's just talking general counters. I would go with the wraith knight with the D sword. It can't stomp you, and you own it at I5 with a bunch of str d attacks hitting on 3's every turn. Only a 5++ in cc, so you will annihilate it since it's only str 8 in cc. (How often have you seen a power fist punk a wraith knight)

To be fair, it'll get some shots in vs the wraith knight before it gets to CC, so you could fairly assume 10 melta shots and the D blast (with some other army support) could end the wraith knight, unless they can't ignore the wraith knight's cover save for some reason, in which case he can get a re-rollable 2+ with decent certainty. But if the wraith knight gets there, one way or another, it's goodnight tau'nar. I think it wouldn't be too hard for eldar to take out the majority of the marker light sources, or just psychic buff the wraith knight (realistically, though, the best you could do would be make it invisible and have a good time)

im thinking the best way is to ally legionaires with codex marines. the legion glaive smashes it for d3+1 auto wounds at s9, you follow up with a skyhammer and finish the rest of the buisness.

since hes to big and fat to get out of the way, if he cant kill the glaive he can be used to polish him off next shooting phase if the skyhammer just wasnt doing it

however this is basically list tailoring and incredibly unlikely for you to get done right more then once or twice ever.

the supremacy armour is probably only able to be dealt with by spending a bucket of more points for like the reaver or the warlord, and yes im aware that i suggested a warlord as a counter to a unit. its that fething strong.

one idea was a hmmer, for smashing my friends fingers before he could assemble the thing, so i could at least go without facing one for a few more weeks. should he ever get one

Going with the Warhound with two double Turbo-Laser Destructors, we end up with BF4 and 4 shots S-D AP2. That's 2.66 hits resulting in 0.44 no damage, 1.77 times d3 wounds and 0.44 deathblows

One slight error in your assumption: yes, you're firing four shots and yes, you're BS4. But the Turbo-Laser has a large blast, meaning you're not rolling a 3+, you're rolling scatter.

The Tau'Nar is on a 160mm round base. So to miss it with a 5" template centred on it, you've got to scatter more than 3.2" (to get the centre hole to the edge of the Tau'Nar's base) + 2.5" (to get the edge of the blast template off the base) + 4 (the BS scatter reduction).

In practical terms, that means rolling a 10" scatter, which is more or less analogous to a 5/6 chance of hitting. As a result, the numbers are a little better than you suggested, but not much.

3 1/3 hits means the odds of not getting a deathblow are (5/6)^(3 1/3) - which is about 54%, or about 46% chance of getting at least one.

Since getting a deathblow result is fairly terminal against pretty much any target (or at least, for the Tau'Nar, the following hits will be), the % chance of getting one is probably a more useful meterstick than the average number rolled.

A warhound cannot effectively counter the KX-139 (see above). An Eldar Revenant is pretty much the same, at 4 shots D, with or with TL provided via psychic powers.

A warhound/revenant titan has about a 50/50 chance of landing a deathblow, and if it does you get an average of about four-and-a-bit wounds from the 'normal' destroyer hits no longer stopped by the shield, and about the same from the deathblow's halved wound roll. That's only one wound shy of killing it outright.

Secondly, why does the titan have to one-shot a Tau'Nar in a single volley to 'effectively counter it' - even if the two stand there trading shots, you will almost certainly have obliterated the supremacy suit by turn 2, whilst - since it only has a single destroyer shot at its disposal - the Tau'Nar will normally take about three turns to bring down the titan (more for a revenant as once it gets moving half the mass driver slugs will miss).

Secondly, if you're invoking fielding a psyker, then I'd suggest invisibility is a much more efficient use of warp charge - neutering the Tau'Nar almost completely.

Lastly, in a chaos army, there's the escalation of Daemon Titans. You're going up to 1.5 times the points, as noted, but the invulnerable save once the shields are down really cuts the Tau'Nar's teeth, especially if paired with the many ways to improve that save.

im thinking the best way is to ally legionaires with codex marines. the legion glaive smashes it for d3+1 auto wounds at s9, you follow up with a skyhammer and finish the rest of the buisness.

since hes to big and fat to get out of the way, if he cant kill the glaive he can be used to polish him off next shooting phase if the skyhammer just wasnt doing it

however this is basically list tailoring and incredibly unlikely for you to get done right more then once or twice ever.

the supremacy armour is probably only able to be dealt with by spending a bucket of more points for like the reaver or the warlord, and yes im aware that i suggested a warlord as a counter to a unit. its that fething strong.

I'm not sure why a glaive would cause automatic wounds? The Tau'Nar has a toughness value, so you're landing S8 AP2 Deflagrate hits..... actually not all that likely to hurt it.

A Reaver would just ventilate the thing. Arm it with multiple turbolasers (the "screw having friends" weapons configuration) and you've got enough shots that your odds of a deathblow are up to around 70% - not to mention that you're hammering the thing so many times it'll probably lose half its wounds per turn even if the shield stays up!

Plus the Tau'Nar will probably take a turn of fire just to breach the void shields.

Wierdly a warlord is not actually discernably better at killing it. Of course, with 10" blast templates, the immediate vicinity is going to be extra crispy, and it is of course much more capable of surviving the return fire.

With LD-Based tactics and a combo of Dark Eldar, Eldar, Harlequins. The Tau'Nar can be killed in one shot by a single model. I ran the numbers when it first came out. Still valid.

A Freakshow list, provided some luck on the psychic powers as always can practically kill it off in a single turn. Being Fearless does not mean being invulnerable to LD tactics.

Horrify lowers LD by 3.
Armor of Misery by 2.
Mask of Secrets by 2.

-7 LD so now has only an LD of 2.

Psychic Shriek, The sum of 3D6 -2 is the number of wounds taken with no armor or cover. That is one aspect but the best is Mirror of Minds. With -7 LD it has become mathematically impossible for the target to survive. Sure your opponent can be a dick and still make the rolls and save but the conclusion is inevitable. It will die.

Mirror of Minds is a focused witchfire. Once the power cast, the caster and target are "locked" in psychic combat. Each roll a D6 + LD so maximum of 8 for the Tau (with the -7 LD) vs D6 + 10 for the Shadowseer.
If the Tau rolls equals or below the Shadowseer it takes a wound with no armor or cover and the process is repeated UNTIL either the Tau dies OR rolls higher which mathematically cannot happen. Sure the guy can make a couple of saves or FnP and then what? The power keeps triggering because the only two escape clauses are superior dice roll (impossible) or death (inevitable).

This works against Wraithknights as well. A properly executed Mirror of Minds is a sureshot BUT it will kill one model not a squad. It's good for HQs or problematic MCs, GMCs

First off he is totally THAT guy if he is playing two of those in a friendly game. He is actually suprised no one wants to play that?

As others have said a warhound should eat that thing with turbo lasers.

I played one once, and totally built a list around it. Ran min cultists squads, a chaos knight, 3 units of DS oblits, and Belakor. Had Belakor invis the knight, Once he got in CC it was over .

Personally, i'd just play someone else if possible.

But if you WANT to deal with him, there are probably a few options. First, you must have a lot of blos terrain. Maybe even use fortifications. But those he can't target. Make him not want to go full-offensive with some fast melee options or psychers that can hurt the things. Than if he goes super-protctive in the corner, pack your forces as much out of los as possible and score points - you can't kill them - accept it. If he goes offensive, stay out of los as much as possible, score points but try to threaten him with fast tarpits.

When in doubt grav it out.

4 invisible Centurions can kill it in two turns, with prescience or rerolls.

@locarno24

Thank you, muxh appreciated!

I was looking at what it takes to bring this thing down to get some useful additional opinions and ideas.

I am not opposed to fielding or facing silly things myself, e.g. Wraithknights or Zarakynel so far, and have a Revenant and a Phantom ordered. The friend who picked up the two KX-139 is heavy into huge models, already owning a Manta and a bunch of Reavers and Warhounds. Another guy in this round is just painting his sixth Imperial Knight, a Cerastus Lancer. So in this Meta, the KX-139 doesn't make it's owner that guy.

What took me aback was how powerful the KX-139 appears for its cost. This impression is confirmed by the counters suggested. It takes some serious list tailoring to deal with the thing, not to mention what happens if the Tau player supports his big nasty with some markerlighs, a screen against charges and Interceptor vs Deep Strike to get in range. I don't think a LD Freakshow will get to within 12" and wouldn't be shocked to see the Tau player go after any of the few units that can scratch the KX-139 before the get to strike. Not a Problem for a true Titan, correct, but not everyone has those at hand. Lesser nasties like IK/WK need to get very lucky or require mistakes allowing a chance.

It's bad logic to assume a unit that costs a curtain amount of points should be defeated by equal or less points in other units. Specifically, if you can kill something with less points, the thing you killed is overcosted and underpowered (or the killer is undercosted and overpowered). Can the Taunar kill it's points worth in a single turn? Not really. Does it take a lot of effort to remove one? Sure.

Where's the problem?

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It's bad logic to assume a unit that costs a curtain amount of points should be defeated by equal or less points in other units. Specifically, if you can kill something with less points, the thing you killed is overcosted and underpowered (or the killer is undercosted and overpowered). Can the Taunar kill it's points worth in a single turn? Not really. Does it take a lot of effort to remove one? Sure.

Where's the problem?

SJ

Points are meant to represent the overall power of a unit in the game. As such it is absolutely logical to expect that a units offense, defense and utility added up are budgeted. Sure, we know GW doesn't do a good job here, but we still agree on a point limit as a means to pit roughly equal forces against each other.

With a 7" blast at strength D AP2, usually buffed to ignore cover as well, the KX-139 can be expected to take out infantry and vehicles easily, depending on positioning multiple units. Unless those are dirt cheap, I expect it to kill its 600 points worth in two rounds of shooting, three if things go poorly.

Being strong in offense and very tough in defense (see above) I consider the KX-139 undercosted/overpowered. I consider IKs appropriately costed, WKs a bit too cheap. If an IK could buy swap its weapon loadout for the KX-139s for 200 points, even without the stronger defenses, people would grab that upgrade as a steal.

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It's bad logic to assume a unit that costs a curtain amount of points should be defeated by equal or less points in other units. Specifically, if you can kill something with less points, the thing you killed is overcosted and underpowered (or the killer is undercosted and overpowered). Can the Taunar kill it's points worth in a single turn? Not really. Does it take a lot of effort to remove one? Sure.

Where's the problem?

SJ

Maybe that a similar statline Gargantuan with less firepower (12 S10 AP3 shots), a 6++ as opposed to a 5++ or 4++ that can stop a Deathblow attack and less funky rules costs 400 points more.

 Frozocrone wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It's bad logic to assume a unit that costs a curtain amount of points should be defeated by equal or less points in other units. Specifically, if you can kill something with less points, the thing you killed is overcosted and underpowered (or the killer is undercosted and overpowered). Can the Taunar kill it's points worth in a single turn? Not really. Does it take a lot of effort to remove one? Sure.

Where's the problem?

SJ

Maybe that a similar statline Gargantuan with less firepower (12 S10 AP3 shots), a 6++ as opposed to a 5++ or 4++ that can stop a Deathblow attack and less funky rules costs 400 points more.

Can you restate that so it makes sense?

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:

 Frozocrone wrote:

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
It's bad logic to assume a unit that costs a curtain amount of points should be defeated by equal or less points in other units. Specifically, if you can kill something with less points, the thing you killed is overcosted and underpowered (or the killer is undercosted and overpowered). Can the Taunar kill it's points worth in a single turn? Not really. Does it take a lot of effort to remove one? Sure.

Where's the problem?

SJ

Maybe that a similar statline Gargantuan with less firepower (12 S10 AP3 shots), a 6++ as opposed to a 5++ or 4++ that can stop a Deathblow attack and less funky rules costs 400 points more.

Can you restate that so it makes sense?

SJ

I believe he is referencing the Hierophant; which is a terrible point. That model is considered terrrible/over costed by several hundred points

Nope, Frozocrone is talking about the Tyranid Hierophant. It costs 400 points more than a Ta'unar, its' shooting is much worse by comparison, it is easier to kill for anything that is AP2, it doesn't have an in built defence against Deathblow results, it has weaker support elements and a weaker codex to back it. The only thing in the Hierophants' favor is that it is much stronger in melee, but seeing as it lacks Destroyer attacks and it still gets slowed by terrain (it's not a Jump unit like the Wraithknight) that's really not saying much.

Yeah it's a Hierophant.

Heck , the Ta'unar costs 35pts more than a Barbed Hierodule.

The prices one pays for an IA being released in 2014..

Those are both bad examples, as they were bad when they were released, and just kept getting worst with each edition.

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
Those are both bad examples, as they were bad when they were released, and just kept getting worst with each edition.

SJ

True, those comparisons are not useful. I find Zarakynel powerful, even at 666 points, with T7, 3++, FNP and her S7 AP1 ID melee. But even if she has her uses, unlike the other deamon lords for fluffy 777 888 or 999 points, the bad guy tax and the relativly low frequency in which this is played don't help.

Comparing the KX-139 with two Wraithknights or 1.5 Imperial Knights would make more sense. I'm thinking that it has both of these equal point comparisons beat, both in survivability and in shooting. Sure, the knights might - if geared for melee - win in melee, but as the Tau say: "Shame you'll never get there." which can be manufactured with bubble wrap units.